Living life to the Max!

'Progressive' is a word neighbours would use to describe Kinnegad dairy farmer, Joe Maxwell. Life for this busy farmer is likely, however, to get even busier from now on, as he was elected chairman of Westmeath IFA.But he"s a man who is passionate about farming, passionate about farm life, and who has spent his entire life in, so to speak, that field, having grown up on a farm at Calliaghstown, Ballymore before ultimately moving to farm in Kinnegad.There are tough times ahead in farming, and he knows that when IFA raises issues of concern, they will, yet again, hear the claim that 'farmers are always complaining'.'If people have that opinion, there"s not a whole lot we can do about it. But we"re no different to any other sector in the community. We have to fight our battles. If we don"t fight our battles, people forget you, and there"s always someone looking for something off the Government.'The big issues that farmers have faced over the past few years have been getting their farms sorted and in accordance with the EU"s Nitrates Directive; the battle against the importation of Brazillian beef; decision making on the food -v- fuel production question; and this year, watching installation aid and the farm retirement scheme get the axe to mention just a few.As Joe takes up the reins one of the most pressing issues facing the farm organisations is getting the Government to cough up the grant aid owed to farmers under the Farm Waste Management scheme, and to pay out the REPS 4 funding. Not going to be easy at a time when financially, the country is in crisis.'The scheme was completely over-subscribed from the Government"s point of view,' admits Joe of the Farm Waste Management Scheme, a grant-aid project set up by the Government to help farmers carry out the works necessary for them to have their farms in compliance with the Nitrates Directive.'Farmers knew they were going to have to do this work, and the Government allocated €125m for it and actually, it"s ended up that so many farmers got involved that it"s going to cost the Government €500m.'That would be our first priority: ensuring that money is paid out. That money has to be paid. At the moment farmers have bridging loans, and the money was supposed to be paid by the government within fourteen weeks of completion of the work.'Some 17,000 farmers are currently waiting to receive an average of €32,000 from the government, and technically, all of them are meant to be paid by the end of March.In addition, nothing has yet been paid out to farmers in REPS 4 (Rural Environment Protection Scheme 4).'When they brought out REPS 1, 2, and 3, payment was made at the start of the year, before you did any work, and in REPS 4, you had to do the work, and you got paid at the end of the year, but there have been no payments made as of yet under REPS 4.'In the meantime, the past year has seen huge slippage in milk prices; grain prices fell drastically in 2008 from the high of 2007, and are likely to slip back even further this year; and the only growth area has come in the beef sector, where prices have climbed by about 15 per cent over the past twelve months, due to the increased demand for beef in Europe after the clampdown on the importation of beef from Brazil.'So why, with all the hardships involved, do farmers stay in farming?' is the question that Joe, like every other farmer in the country, has been asked at one time or another. For Joe, the answer is that farming is not just a job: it"s tied in with family; it"s a lifestyle; it"s almost a heritage and culture thing.'You only need to have money to live: now we all like to have a nice lifestyle but you can produce food on a farm; you can live fairly cheaply if you want to. And there"s one nice thing about it: you can have your son and your daughter out there with you, and you can go off in the Sumemr, in the sun, and do something very simple together, and there"s not too many PAYE workers can bring their son or daughter with them to work.'It"s about family. Everybody is involved in it, and everybody knows what"s going on. It"s a good way of bonding.'Joe has four children: Alison, 18, Paul, 16, Owen, 14, and James 9. Sadly, Joe"s wife Mary, died tragically young in 2007, after a long battle with cancer.He misses her a lot, adding that she was hugely involved in the whole business, and was as ready to step in and do the milking as any of the staff when called upon; and that she did a lot of the farm paperwork, a role which Alison, currently studying to be a teacher, has taken on since her mother"s death.Joe"s been struck by the kindness of his neighbours since Mary"s death: so many people offered to help him in terms of collecting kids from school, and helping look after them, aware that combining farming with full-time fatherhood was going to require from Joe more hours than his days possess.Joe and Mary met through Macra na Feirme: she herself coming from a farm in Rochfortbridge. Sigificantly, he says, referring to the changes in Irish rural life: none of his children"s friends are from farming backgrounds.As farms have grown in size, the number of farms around has diminished, and with it, the number of people who will have had that experience of growing up on a farm.For Joe, there never was going to be any other career but farming. After attending Ballymore NS, and then the Carmelite College in Moate, he headed to Mount Bellew Agricultural College, and when his father became ill, he and brother Bernard farmed together. Ultimately, in 2000, Joe bought his present farm in Kinnegad.He recalls that taking on that farm then, and building it up, provided him with an immense adrenalin flow. He"s looking forward to whatever his new role in IFA brings him - whether adrenalin or headaches. But he"s got good back-up behind him, both at home, and within the IFA, and a commitment to ensuring that farming in Ireland survives.